Motherboard For A Router

[jasonvp]

 

I've been looking at re-doing my home router (again ... this project seems to come and go on a regular basis) and am looking for suggestions on the motherboard/chipset.  What I want to try to do is have 2 2-port 10GigE cards in the router.  On-board video is preferable so I don't have to buy a GPU.  RAM: would prefer DDR4.  Intel/AMD?  Don't really care.

 

The challenge is the PCI-E slots.  I need 2 that can run with at least x8 lanes.  They can be PCI-E 2.0 x8 lanes, but they have to have 8 lanes.

 

It seems like the common 1151 (300) motherboards all have 2 x16 slots, but one of them is fixed at x16 and the other runs at x4.  That won't work.  The lower-end AMD motherboards look like they have the same sort of limitation: a slot that runs at x16 and then another that runs at x4.  Grrr!

 

Can this be done without going X299 / TR?  And can it all fit on an ATX-sized MoBo?

[badreg]

Look for boards that have SLI in their name, or two reinforced PCI-E x16 slots. Either of these are clues that the second PCI-E x16 slot is an x8.

 

Here's an example:

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/Z390-GAMING-SLI-rev-10/sp#sp

[jasonvp]

1 minute ago, badreg said:

Look for boards that have SLI in their name, or two reinforced PCI-E x16 slots. Either of these are clues that the second PCI-E x16 slot is an x8.

Ah excellent.  Thank you for that.  I've had my head "buried" in HEDT motherboards for too long and am literally ignorant of the other ones.

[jasonvp]

I'm thinking this list of equipment for the router build.  I already have one of the 2x10Gig cards, so I just need a second.  And I have the router's OS/configuration already installed on another SSD; should be a straight and easy transplant.